It doesn’t really matter how old one may be, we should always try to find a little time to take a short stroll down memory lane with family and friends, remembering the good times along with all those amazing people and great ‘characters’ that we grew up with. For those of us who are now seniors, we know that on most days we have to try to adjust just a little and then patiently accept those often wild, occasionally weird, but mostly wonderful changes that are invading our usually organized lifestyles.
Please allow this often melancholic and sometimes forgetful, but still spunky (between naps) 73-year-old to share some of these favourite old ‘Wasn’t this us?’ memories with all of you and insisting that we always need to keep on sharing lots of smiles whether we have all our teeth in place or not.
*We only had a living room where we would all congregate, unless it was meal-time, and then we all gathered at the kitchen table for three meals a day, for games, and for ‘family chats’ to solve the day-to-day problems and skirmishes.
*We only had one television set with maybe two channels that featured mostly fun ‘family programs’ with no remote controls, but our homework and chores had to be done first before it was turned on.
*I remember going to the store and shopping casually, paying for the goods with one’s own money, with nothing to swipe, and the cashier had to really know how to count.
*There was a time so many years ago when the milkman and the postman both came to the door, they knew your name, petted the dog and didn’t deliver ‘junk mail’ or letters addressed to the ‘present occupant.’
*There was a time when just one glance was all it would take to know the kind of car, the model and the make, and they didn’t look like turtles trying to squeeze out every mile. In our days, they were streamlined with white walls, fender skirts, fins, beads, and blue lights too, really set up the mood and the style of the roaring 50s and 60s.
*Our music for dancing and romance came from a radio or a vinyl big-holed record called a 45, which dropped down on a record player one at a time.
*There never really needed to be a reason to organize picnics at the peak of the summer season, where everyone packed a lunch to share, and then found a patch of grass, some trees or a lake to get together. Later we found a baseball or a football and got a game together with all the family and friends we knew, there were no game videos, the rules were fair, and everyone got to play, even the grandparents.
*Remember when the doctor, the minister, the policeman, the teacher, the coach and the neighbour were all family friends, and never needed insurance or a lawyer to defend them?
*For snacks, we had potato chips that tasted like a chip, but if we wanted flavour there was always onion dip. Shop bought snacks and take-out were rare because moms always liked to cook, and nothing could compare to what they created in the kitchen out of Betty Crocker’s book.
*Like all the rest of you, I will learn to love all the new technology perks once I can figure it all out or get help from my grand-children, but I will always look forward to sitting back and browsing through the old photo albums going down memory lane. Then how sweet it is to rub shoulders with the next generation and say, ‘Hey look, guys, that was us’.
Please try the nostalgia rush once in a while because it is a real blast, and then just go ahead and have a great week, all of you.